Nearly all the higher profile parties have now named their candidates for the Makerfield by-election. Labour, Reform, Restore, the Greens and the Tories have named their candidates. At the time of writing only the Lib Dems have not yet named their candidate.
Despite the full slate of candidates, of which there are likely to be many in this high profile contest, not being fully assembled, this contest is already getting heated. Reform and Restore supporters are tearing chunks out of each other online, for reasons that I understand but which I have my own views on and is a fight that is likely to see Labour’s Andy Burnham slip into the seat and then the leadership of the Labour Party. The Tories are going to have to try very hard to hang onto their dwindling vote which last time out in 2024 appears to have gone to the Reform Party. If this pattern continues then the Tories are staring down the barrel of a lost deposit.
There are growing attacks on the Reform candidate Robert Kenyon for his previous association with groups that are considered as ‘far right’ by some. However it is a testament to how opinion has shifted in Britain over the last ten years that these attacks are not hitting home.
A decade ago such associations would have been a political death sentence but politics is changing and doing a Wes Streeting and whining about British nationalism or ‘racism’ or the ‘far right’ is not the weapon it once was. As I said over a decade ago when I started this blog, if the term ‘racist’ is overused then eventually it will come to have no meaning whatsoever and so it has come to pass. My view of Mr Kenyon’s previous associations is this: People change their political views over time, people learn, they grow, they examine their beliefs and sometimes change them. This is normal. I started out being on the Left but over time and by being confronted with evidence of Leftism’s failures, I moved to the centre-Right, although I rejected relatively early on the Far Left. Also back when Mr Kenyon was first getting into politics the sort of discussions that go on in the groups that Mr Kenyon has been accused of associating with issues such as Islam, migration, demographics etc were not anywhere near being discussed in any mainstream party of the Right. That’s not the case today. Issues such as Islam, migration and the shape of society, are being discussed across the Right not just on its fringes. Maybe society has moved on but those attacking Mr Kenyon have not done so? In any case, much of Mr Kenyon’s alleged associations would have been known for years and likely even at the 2024 General Election when he came in second place in the seat. So far what has been ‘revealed’ about Mr Kenyon is a bit of a nothingburger after all I’ve had at various times in my life had cordial and polite relations with Communists and various members of Right wing groupings from the centre right to hard right but that doesn’t make me a Communist or a Fascist. This ‘guilt by association’ game is so quarter of a century ago.
The online fight between Reform and Restore supporters is both unseemly and politically dangerous. It’s unseemly because here are two groups that should be in agreement about the danger of a Burnham government tearing strips off of one another about policy approaches and personalities. It’s like watching that scene from Life of Brian when the People’s Front of Judea are fighting with members of rival groups instead of fighting the Romans. Reform and Restore ‘struggling together’ yes I’m afraid that they are.
The discord between the two groups of Reform and Restore supporters is extremely politically dangerous. Restore have zero chance of actually taking this seat. Although things have changed in politics and British society has shifted rightwards because of the issues of migration, Islamopandering, a failing economy and more, from looking at the numbers from previous elections it would be almost impossible for Restore to win here. It would require either a massive increase in turnout from last time’s 52.5% to something like 75-80% with the difference being made up of previously non-voting Restore supporters which is a similar turnout to that which propelled Labour’s Ian McCartney into the seat at the 1987 General Election. I can’t see that happening. Even though this is a high profile by-election and it’s the first by-election in the seat’s history, it’s likely that the turnout will be around 60-70% and not all of that turnout will be for Restore.
It’s highly unusual for a new party to come from nowhere and win a seat. It took time for the nascent Labour Party to gain seats at the turn of the 20th century and it wasn’t until the 1920’s that they were able to form a government and didn’t get a landslide mandate until 1945. It took forty five years, two world wars, an extension of the voting franchise, devastating economic problems and the backing of organised labour to achieve the post WWII landslide for Clement Atlee. On the mainland of Britain it is mostly only when there are specific local issues or there is a religious voting bloc that a party or an independent can come from nowhere and win a seat such as happened with the election of Richard Taylor in 2001 who stood for the Kidderminster Hospital Health Concern party and the election in 2024 of various Islamic independents. I’m not sure how Restore meet this standard? There’s no issue of overriding concern that Restore could exploit apart from immigration and there’s no religious of ethnic bloc that is likely to flock to Restore. Restore are deluded if they think they can win this but I suppose they’ve got to say that they would win, just as the Tories do, to keep in with and enthuse their bases.
As I’ve said in my previous article on this election, which I’ve linked to below, Restore have the absolute right to stand in whatever contest they’ve paid their £500 deposit for. However whether it was wise of them to do this in this contest with all that is at stake with it is another question. I can understand to a certain extent why those who are backing Restore do so, they are in a political purity spiral and see Reform as too soft for them. What’s ironic is how Restore supporters appear to be acting is a mirror image of how the Left behaves where ideological purity tests define whether someone is in that part of the Left or out of it.
My view of the fighting between the alternatives to the Big Three parties is this: I do not like Restore, I don’t like the personality cult aspects of it or the political purity spiral aspect to it and it’s policy offerings are even thinner than put out by Reform and that’s saying something. It’s amateur hour politics at a time when much more savvy thought is needed. As for Reform they are very much imperfect and Nigel Farage, whilst a brilliant political salesman, does not earn my entire trust. However in politics we must be practical, however much I may not entirely trust Reform’s leadership Reform are the best chance of laying on Labour and causing internal mayhem for Labour and maybe thereby disincentivising Labour from enacting some of its more rabid and damaging policies.
So what are my predictions at this very early stage of the game? Labour could lose far Left wing votes to the Greens although the Greens have been damaged by some recent publicity about their leadership. If the Tories do worse than last time, which was terrible when compared to their previous performances, they may lose their deposit as might the Liberal Democrats. Reform could take this seat if Labour voters stay home in large numbers in disgust at how Labour are governing. Restore are the wild card here. If they manage to get out the anti-migration maximalists as the BNP did earlier this century then they could get a couple of thousand votes but it’s equally likely that Restore could be well down from this party’s own expectations and end up down the bottom with the Monster Raving Loony Party. If it’s the first scenario then it’s likely that this couple of thousand votes for Restore might prevent Reform from taking the seat and local people end up with Andy Burnham and the whole country goes down the toilet. If it is the second scenario then we will not only be rid of Burnham but Restore will start to look like niche political fraggles. Personally I hope for the latter outcome because of the high stakes of this election.
As more candidates are selected for this contest I’ll do more pieces on it. I’m especially interested in whether the Lib Dems manage to gain the ‘a plague on both your houses’ vote and what sort of entities and individuals are going to be in the undercard. This is a contest that is going to be fascinating for both good and bad reasons.
Links
Previous post on the Makerfield by-elections
https://www.fahrenheit211.net/2026/05/19/its-another-bun-fight-by-election/
Why I’m sceptical of the Restore Britain Party.
https://www.fahrenheit211.net/2026/05/03/im-sceptical-of-the-restore-britain-party-but-there-is-something-else-that-has-made-me-even-more-sceptical/
The historical political numbers from Makerfield
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Makerfield_(constituency)